Tag: Men

If you’re looking for the latest in hipster clothing for your trendy male avatar, have I got a deal for you! The back half of the NEWCLOVER store is all marked down to zero! That’s right, everything is free!

Now, the sign says the sale is only until Oct. 17th, but I was still able to pick everything up for free today, so you might want to hurry down, just in case it all ends soon. If you join the NEWCLOVER group for free (there’s a sign at the entrance), you can also pick up a nice free group gift, packed full of men’s clothing.

Here’s one hipster look I was able to put together. Everything except the sneakers is from NEWCLOVER:

This avatar is wearing:

Bento mesh head: Keiji head by Akeruka (no longer available for free). If you haven’t yet joined the Akrueka group (called [AK] Heads News & Support) for L$150, you should really consider it. If you had joined the Akeruka mesh heads group a year and a half ago, you would have picked up no less than six fully-adjustable Bento mesh heads (three female and three male), all for a single group join fee of L$150. That works out to only L$25 per Bento mesh head, a truly outstanding deal!

Bento mesh body: The free Altamura Robert avatar from the Freebie Megastore at London City (see here for more details). One advantage of this body is that you can remove the head to use another mesh head with it (as I did here).

Hat: Fedora hat in black from NEWCLOVER

Coat and sweater: Neo coat in black check from NEWCLOVER

Pants: Neo slacks in black from NEWCLOVER

Sneakers: I’m pretty sure I picked this pair up from the men’s section at the excellent freebie store on the Ajuda SL Brasil sim; I’m not sure if they are still available, though.

First, let’s just recap all the free/inexpensive mesh avatar bodies for men:

The two versions of the free Altamura Max avatars at the freebie stores at UniHispana Crea and Ajuda SL Brasil (see here for more details). Note that you cannot remove the head to replace it with another mesh head.

The free Altamura Robert avatar from the Freebie Megastore at London City (see here for more details). Note that you cannot remove the head to replace it with another mesh head, although, if you were lucky enough to pick up the previous version of Robert (which was a Men Only Hunt gift last year), you can remove the head to use another mesh head with it (like the recent freebie mesh head from Akeruka).

The free Altamura Tommy avatar at the Altamura mainstore (you do need to join the Altamura group for L$50 to get this freebie; see here for more details). Again, you cannot remove the head to replace it with another mesh head. UPDATE: This gift avatar is no longer available at the Altamura mainstore, sorry!

If you were lucky, you picked up a free Altamura avatar called Aaron, which was a limited-time TeleportHub.com gift in late 2017 at their mainstore (you had to join the TeleportHub.com group for L$10 to pick up this freebie). You can remove the head to use another mesh head with it.

Finally, there is the freebie version of the EXMACHINA avatar (which you can “tan” to any skin tone you wish; more information is available here). Note that this avatar does not come with a HUD so you cannotremove the head or set any alpha sections. You basically have to buy all your clothing from EXMACHINA (although the free body does come in a version with a built-in bathing suit, so it’s the perfect freebie mesh avatar for the beach!). UPDATE March 13th, 2019: this free version is no longer available.

Rick Bijkerk of the Secondlife Facebook group alerted me to two inexpensive male mesh avatar head and body packages from Alantori. More details on this option can be found at the very end of this blogpost!

UPDATE Jan. 24th, 2019: There is a new dollarbie male mesh avatar body by META on the SL Marketplace (see here for more details).

UPDATE Feb. 14th, 2019: If you were on the ball, you were able to pick up the free, fully-featured Romeo mesh head and body package as a Valentine’s Day gift from the Altamura booth at the eBENTO Event. More details here.

So, let’s take a look at some free or inexpensive mesh heads.

Akeruka

If you haven’t yet joined the Akrueka group (called [AK] Heads News & Support) for L$150, you should really consider it. If you had joined the Akeruka mesh heads group a year and a half ago, you would have picked up no less than six fully-adjustable Bento mesh heads (three female and three male), all for a single group join fee of L$150. That works out to only L$25 per Bento mesh head, a truly outstanding deal! So join the Akeruka group and keep your eyes peeled for announcements of free Bento mesh heads every six months or so 😉

LV Designs

If you missed out on the Akeruka freebies, you can pick up a very handsome Bento mesh head from LV Designs for only L$500. The Matt head (SL Marketplace link) may not come with all the bells and whistles of the pricier Bento mesh heads from Catwa and other vendors, but it certainly does the job at one-tenth the cost, as you can see:

Curves

UPDATE Feb. 20th: Unfortunately, the two male mesh heads from Curves are no longer available.

Now, let’s look at the free and cheap (non-Bento) mesh heads which are available. Unfortunately, there are very few options available for freebie male mesh heads. First up are two free male mesh heads from Curves (here’s the SLURL):

If you join the Curves group for free, you can pick up the following bearded head called Sam:

And if you join the SL Frees & Offers group for free, you can pick up the cleanshaven Kent mesh head for free:

I’m not crazy about the dark eyeshadow on the Kent head, but it might be more to your taste.

(Note that you cannot adjust the Curves mesh heads, remove the eyeshadow, or change the skintone. They are static mesh heads.)

Cheerno

There’s a free (non-adjustable) mesh head available from the men’s section of the freebie store at Ajuda SL Brasil, the Andrey head from Cheerno (here’s the exact SLURL to find it):

The Marcus head comes with an expression HUD with six different facial expressions but, strangely, no ears, so you’ll have to find those elsewhere. I had a great deal of difficulty getting the mesh eyes to fit properly, this is the best I could do:

Honestly, I’d probably give the Marcus head a pass. It’s just too much of a hassle.

However, I did have much better results with the Travis mesh head, which comes with ears and an expression HUD with 6 different facial expressions:

This picture of the Travis head includes the HUD for the freebie mesh eyes from eyden & yves, showing you the nine different colour options which are available:

Looking good!

Here are pictures of the other three free mesh heads from 300mg, which have darker skin tones. Here’s model S1 (again, no ears are included, and there’s no expression HUD either):

Here’s model S2 (which again has no ears, but it does have an expression HUD with 6 different facial expressions). Again, I had a great deal of difficulty getting the mesh eyes to fit properly on this particular head:

And finally, here is model S3 from 300mg (again, there’s no ears, but it does have an expression HUD with 6 different facial expressions):

Media Company Brzeg

Now this is a great-looking mesh head, BUT… there’s a big catch. This is a static mesh attachment to the avatar Mouth, and it is notrigged to the body. You will need to wear it with a turtleneck (like in this picture) for it to look any good at all. You will also have to use these heads with a complete body alpha which removes the system eyes, as the eyes are part of the head and cannot be changed. It’s basically a static mask you wear. And there’s also a patch on the back of these mesh heads which you will have to cover with hair of some kind.

Do you know of any other free or inexpensive men’s mesh heads? If you do, please leave me a comment on this blogpost, thank you!

UPDATE Oct. 5th:

Alantori

Rick Bijkerk of the Secondlife Facegroup group alerted me to an inexpensive male mesh avatar head and body package from a store called Alantori (here’s the exact SLURL):

These mesh bodies are only L$99 (or L$90, a 10% discount, if you join the Alantori group for free). So I bought the clean-shaven Mark body (the sign on the right in the picture above) and tried it on. The body comes with a fully-adjustable Bento head and Bento hands, he’s got a basic HUD with a decent set of alpha selections, and it would appear that you can tint his fingernails and toenails, which are separate attachments:

The body comes with underwear, but you might have some trouble finding clothing to fit this body properly. The sign in the store said that the body “fits all Adin and Onupup clothes”, but I had never heard of those clothing brands before. (I assume that most standard-size male clothing can also be made to fit, with all the alpha selections on the included HUD.)

There is also a tutorial video:

The Alantori body comes with menu-driven facial expressions and hand poses, which is rather different from how most other bodies are animated using an AO. (I tested the Alantori body with a Bento male AO from Tuty’s and it worked just fine.)

Here’s a close-up of the Alantori Mark body’s head, which actually looks pretty good (the mesh eyes are included, or you can just use your system eyes):

In addition to the clean-shaven Mark body, there is also bearded, hairier Paul body for the same price (L$99 without the group, or L$90 with the free group join). It’s definitely an inexpensive option for those of you with limited Lindens to spend on a male mesh body, but you still might want to try out the freebie Altamura bodies first.

Thanks for the great tip, Rick!

UPDATE Dec. 23rd:

Altamura Akakor

Altamura is giving away a fully-adjustable, Omega-compatible male Bento mesh head called Akakor, as one of the 12 Days of Christmas gifts under the Christmas tree at their mainstore. You do have to join the Altamura Design/Mesh Avatars group to pick up all the Advent gifts (the group join fee is L$25 during the Advent/Christmas season; usually, the fee to join is L$50). It’s worth it to join the group and stay subscribed, since Altamura often offers special deals to group members throughout the year.

UPDATE March 13th: EXMACHINA has completely redone their store, and the new demo version 5.03 of the Davide mesh body has a large logo attached to the head, making it unusable. Also, the free tanning beds to change the skintone of this body are no longer available. Sorry!

PLEASE NOTE:For a current, up-to-date list of free and inexpensive options for male mesh avatar heads and bodies, please see this blogpost.

There are three options for male avatars who are looking for a free/inexpensive mesh head and body, all from Altamura:

The two versions of the free Altamura Max avatars at the freebie stores at UniHispana Crea and Ajuda SL Brasil (see here for more details). Note that you cannot remove the head to replace it with another mesh head.

The free Altamura Robert avatar from the Freebie Megastore at London City (see here for more details). One advantage of this body is that you can remove the head to use another mesh head with it (like the recent freebie mesh head from Akeruka).

The free Altamura Tommy avatar at the Altamura mainstore (you do need to join the Altamura group for L$50 to get this freebie; see here for more details). Again, you cannot remove the head to replace it with another mesh head.

Well, EXMACHINA has just released version 4 of their full-body Davide male mesh avatar, and you can pick up a free demo version at their store. You do have to join the EXMACHINA group for free to use the vendor.

One drawback is that the included shape that comes with it is NO modify, which is a real pain in the ass. However, there are a couple of ways around this limitation. You can click on the Giorgio and Andrew skin and shape panels located on the wall to the right of the demo version vendor, and buy those for L$0 (you must be in the EXMACHINA group). While you cannot use the skin appliers with the free demo version of the EXMACHINA mesh body, you can use the modifiable shapes. Also, there is a L$10 Diego shape available on the SL Marketplace which you can use with this body, and you can modify it as you like. I bought the Diego shape and used it for the pictures below.

Here’s what my avatar looks like with the slightly adjusted Diego shape (I had to play around with the eyes, mouth, nose, torso muscles and arm length a bit):

The avatar comes with the mesh eyes you see here. It also comes in two versions: nude, or with the blue bathing suit you see here. It’s actually quite a nice-looking avatar! Please note that you cannot change the skin colour (remember, this is a demo, not the full version).

The hair is Minato by Argrace, a free group gift (the group is free to join). The AO I used is the Daily sLife free Bento male AO (available free from Tuty’s). The total cost of this avatar is FREE! You can’t beat that!

Another serious limitation with the free EXMACHINA body is that it does not come with alpha sections on the HUD (in fact, there’s no HUD at all!). So, basically, you’re going to have problems getting clothing and shoes to fit, unless they are designed for this body. Note that there are a few clothes for sale, designed to fit the EXMACHINA mesh body without the need for alphas, so you can try those. I did spend another L$250 on a muscle shirt and a pair of jeans, both of which fit this mesh body perfectly!

UPDATE Oct. 19th: I paid a second visit to the EXMACHINA store and discovered a few changes. The panel to get the freebie version of the Davide body is now at this SLURL, located in the Freebies section.

And the default skin tone is quite pale, as you can see (this is the slightly modified free Giorgio shape):

BUT, there are now two tanning chairs just outside the store, where you can “tan” your freebie avatar to any shade you desire! (Here’s the SLURL.) The longer you sit, the deeper the tan!

Here’s the same avatar, after using the tanning chair for about 15 minutes:

I tested it out, and it appears that the tan you get is permanent on the freebie Davide avatar, even if you sign out and sign in again. In other words, you can’t “untan” him. However, if you make a mistake and get too dark a tan for your liking, you can always pick up another freebie version of the avatar and start over.

The ability to pick your own skin tone sets the Davide mesh avatar body by EXMACHINA apart from the other freebie male mesh avatar bodies. It’s a great option if you just want a good-looking avatar for the beach, or you can dress him up in clothing sold at the same sim, designed for the Davide body.

Bakaboo (in-world store, SL Marketplace) is a Second Life brand known for their vibrant, colourful patterns in clothing for both men and women. But did you know that you can pick up a small wardrobe of fabulous freebies for men from their Group Gifts section at the back of the store?

If you join the L’Homme Magazine SL Readers group for free, you can pick up four articles of men’s clothing! Here’s a complete suit, which is one of the four gifts:

And, if you join the Bakaboo group (also for free), you can pick up an additional three gifts for male avatars! The following outfit consists of a jacket (another group gift from L’Homme Magazine), plusmatching pants andshoes (both group gifts from Bakaboo):

And finally, if you can find the black moustache from the Men Only Hunt hidden somewhere in or around the store, you can get this sweatshirt and sweatpants outfit for free! The clue is “The wisest and deerest one”. The hunt ends Aug. 18th, so hurry down!